Orphan African Crops Research In Minnesota.

There is a need to have unthreshed plants in order to conduct threshing, winnowing and milling equipment research on the grains of those crops.  In the summer of 2011 on the University of Minnesota St. Paul campus we planted, maintained, and hand harvested seven crops grown for food consumption on the African continent.  This work was done in conjunction with Compatible Technologies International (CTI), a nonprofit organization based in St. Paul that strives to reduce hunger and poverty in the developing world by designing and distributing simple, life-changing food and water technologies.  The purpose of our research was to obtain sufficient quantities of unthreshed heads as well as threshed grain for conducting threshing-winnowing as well as grinding (milling) shop- and field-level tests of selected small-seeded food crops on equipment under development by CTI.  The crops included tef (Eragrostis tef), finger millet (Eleusine coracana), fonio (Digitaria exilis), grain amaranth (Amaranthus spp.), pearl millet (Pennisetum glaucum), sorghum (Sorghum bicolor), and peanut (Arachis hypogaea).  Agronomic considerations and post-harvest management issues associated with growing these crops in Minnesota will be discussed.